Sword Dynasty

Sword Dynasty is a long-form classical xianxia novel by the internet author Wu Zui. Serialized on Zongheng Chinese Network starting in 2014, it has been completed at roughly 2.3 million characters. The story is set in a world resembling China's Warring States period, except that this world possesses another path of cultivation: the Great Qin has successively conquered the three great dynasties of Han, Zhao, and Wei, ushering in an unprecedented golden age. Powerful cultivators emerge in endless succession, and everyone takes pride in being a subject of Qin. Yet in the city of Changling, a young man named Ding Ning, an ordinary figure scraping a living in the streets, and his nominal aunt, Zhangsun Qianxue, appear to keep to themselves—but in their hearts they plot to overthrow the Great Qin dynasty and even to kill the Qin emperor, whose cultivation has reached the unprecedented eighth realm. The novel follows Ding Ning's revenge and growth as its main thread: his practice of a mysterious cultivation art and his step-by-step rise to power, his alliances and maneuvering through the schemes of various parties, the wars among the seven states, the rivalries of sects and great clans, and a brutal world in which cultivators prove their Dao with swords and gamble their lives in combat. Dynastic upheaval and personal vendettas intertwine: Ding Ning is constantly forced to choose between vengeance and righteousness, private grievance and the fate of the realm. The work was selected for the 2018 Excellent Original Online Literature recommendation list by the National Press and Publication Administration and the China Writers Association, and has been adapted into an animated series, a live-action television drama of the same name, and other works. The print edition has been released in volumes by Changjiang Publishing House since 2017, and this entry corresponds to its first volume, Great Treason.